The venerable Suvretta House amidst the forests above St Moritz

Suvretta House, just outside St Moritz, could be the perfect combination: a self-contained resort with celebrated restaurants and its own ski lift, a snowball’s throw from the parties in town, and right next to the even more exclusive parties up the road

One slight contradiction in some glamorous mountain resorts is that sometimes you don’t feel you are truly immersed in the mountains. As dramatic as the views might be, mountain resorts are still urban developments.

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Combine that with crowded lifts – we think it’s amazing that nobody has invented a private lift system in major resorts so the superwealthy don’t need to be in the same car as the merely slightly wealthy – and you have a situation that is less of a mountain retreat than you may have hoped.

The new open-air pool at Suvretta House is in communion with nature

Neither apply to Suvretta House. This grand luxurious palace of a hotel is perched on its own hilltop, surrounded by forests, just a 10-minute walk – or two-minute drive in a Ferrari Purosangue – from the town of St Moritz. But its location is gloriously, famously quiet. Step out of the hotel in summer and you find yourself in the middle of a forest walking trail. In winter, you are crunching through a deep snowfield in the heart of the forest.

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Suvretta House is its own destination. It has its own ski lift rising up from its grounds – the nearest thing you can get to a private ski lift – connecting to the big Corviglia ski area. You can literally ski into the hotel – an amenity not shared by any other palace hotel in the area. You are also – and you can visit many times and not even realise this – in the heart of the most exclusive community of St Moritz: Suvretta, which is a discreet collection of villas (mansions, really) occupied by the European aristocracy and global superwealthy scattered on the hillside immediately above.

Suvretta’s indoor pool with a view that stretches across the Engadine valley, accompanied by an extensive new spa wing

There are no indications to this effect, no glossy shopping malls, no branches of Nobu – it’s just something you know. Many of those who own the villas all around are owners of brands that people wear at dinner.

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Our room at Suvretta House looked out over the back gardens – tennis and other sports in summer, ice rink in winter – stretching out to the forest that undulates down towards one of the great lakes of the Engadine. Beyond that, only mountains and wilderness. Just looking at the view felt like being in a spa.

The Suvretta House Stube is a comfortable place to dine, offering Swiss classics with a lighter touch

Nobody can come to Suvretta without experiencing the Stube, the casually named restaurant that is both cosy, relaxed and extremely gastronomic. We could eat there every day, due to the magnificent quality of its simple dishes. We also love its wine list: even the house wine is a globally renowned Chardonnay from the nearby Graubünden wine region. We just couldn’t get enough.

The huge indoor pool is now accompanied by an extensive spa wing, meaning there is even less reason to leave Suvretta House. There is a wealth of luxury resorts being built across the Alps, but there will never be anything like Suvretta House, which feels like a private club for the discerning and knowledgeable, but open to guests.

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